1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of content management in a computer environment and, more particularly, to the manipulation, control, and management of text content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computers, PDA's, and other similar processing devices enable users to manipulate, control, and manage content of all kinds. Probably the most common form of content used on such devices is text content. Word processors and text editors (referred to generically as “editors” herein) allow text to be cut, pasted, modified, and saved quickly and easily.
Text selection capabilities are a fundamental feature of almost every editor, especially for applications that run on the Microsoft Windows operating system. Text is typically selected for editing purposes, such as cutting; cutting and pasting; changing font characteristics; copying; and other similar operations. The display of the selected text on the display screen is typically altered in some manner to differentiate it from the non-selected text, e.g., by changing the background color and/or font color of the selected text (often referred to as “highlighting”), by underlining the selected text, by changing the selected text from normal to bold, etc.
In a typical application, to select text the user simply positions a mouse pointer at a selection point using a mouse or other pointing device, and then performs one of several actions to select a desired portion of the text. For example, double-clicking on a particular word selects the entire word; triple-clicking on a word will select the entire sentence containing that word, and quadruple-clicking on a word selects the entire paragraph containing the word. Alternatively, holding down the right mouse button and “dragging” the mouse pointer down a page will cause all lines of text over which the mouse pointer is dragged, up to the stopping point, to be selected. Some users prefer using the “Control” and “Shift” keys (or other similar key combinations, depending upon the features of the program being used), in combination with the function keys “up, down, end, home” in order to select a complete line, paragraph, or entire content.
Prior art editors can only select one continuous portion of text at a time. In other words, they “lose track” of the first selection of selected text when a different portion of the text is selected for highlighting. This holds true whether the second selection is in the same document (e.g., in a single Microsoft Word document) or in a different application (e.g., the first selection of text is in an MS Word document and the second selection of text is in a Corel WordPerfect document). There is no “multiple selecting” function that is capable of spanning non-contiguous parts of a single application or multiple applications.
Some editors do allow for a “batch copy” function through the manual method of selecting one section of text and copying it to a “clipboard,” then selecting the next desired text and appending it to the existing clipboard text, and repeating this process until all desired data has been copied and appended. The entire contents of the clipboard can then be pasted to a single location using the pasting function of the program. This is a tedious process.
What is needed is a set of comprehensive selecting features that reduce the numerous manual steps currently required of text-editing programs.